Published Paper Details:

Abstract The present study discusses the representation of sectarian hegemony and cultural resistance in post-2003 Iraq in Ahmed Al-Saadawi's novel Frankenstein in Baghdad (2013) through Antonio Gramsci's theoretical concept of hegemony and counter-hegemony. This paper explores Al-Saadawi's representation of the Iraqi state's use of sectarian division as a means of political control and, at the same time, everyday acts of resistance by the marginalized. The study shows how the state enforces sectarian fragmentation through coercive apparatuses by focusing on key scenes, especially the police intervention on the Virgin Mary statue in the protagonist Hadi's home. It also shows how ordinary people resist this imposition through symbolic acts of coexistence. The analysis is based on Gramsci's Prison Notebooks and draws on subsequent neo-Gramscian work in cultural studies. The findings suggest that Al-Saadawi depicts sectarianism as a manufactured hegemonic strategy rather than a natural and ancient phenomenon, requiring the state to use perpetual violence to maintain its hegemony. Unlike this, Hadi's hanging a Christian symbol in his Muslim home is an organic counter-hegemony, a rejection from below of sectarian discourses imposed by the state. The paper ends with the idea that literature, especially the Iraqi novel after 2003, is an important site for documenting and critiquing the political exploitation of religious identity, offering perspectives that compete with and sometimes precede political science analyses. This research contributes to literary studies, political theory, and post-colonial criticism by demonstrating how fictional narratives can illuminate the mechanisms of hegemony and resistance in societies recovering from conflict.